What the hell is going on in Macedonia?

A maelstrom of scandals, drama, violence and anger has seen Macedonia sliding towards collapse in recent months, with serious implications for the Balkans as a whole.

Macedonia's triumphal arch, a legacy of the Skopje 2014 project, was attacked with dyed water balloons as part of the Colourful revolution. PAimages/Jacopo Landi/NurPhoto. All rights reserved.

The past few years have been increasingly
turbulent for the Republic of Macedonia. The country has been stuck in a deep crisis since 2014, with the rare glimmers of hope being quickly
extinguished, and few people in the country seeing a future for themselves at home. So how did we get here?

Macedonia has been ruled by the
conservative Macedonian VMRO-DPMNE party and their coalition partner, the
self-proclaimed “Marxist-Leninist” Albanian party, DUI, since 2006. Although
DUI has nothing to do with the Marxist-Leninist ideology, their partners do
employ some conservative thought into creating a new faux culture and identity
for the Macedonians. This new identity is mostly based on nationalism, inclusing the revival of lesser known and lesser revered figures from the past such as Andon Kjoseto, a hitman
that lived through the anti-Ottoman rebellion.

This self-stylized reinvention of the
national identity has been the bane of many critics for its crudeness and for
being based on “alternative facts”, however it had a financial drawback as well
– the government began an initiative to reinvent the national identity, which
included a project called “Skopje 2014”, among other things. This initiative
has cost hundreds of millions of dollars - some estimates even going as far as
700 million - and it has delivered in a big way, putting up hundreds of
monuments, mostly in the centre of the capital, Skopje, but also in other cities around the country.

This nationalistic wave was dulled by the
protest movements that started to appear in the fall of 2014. First, as usual,
came the students, then the teachers, professors, high school students,
part-time workers and pretty much everyone else that had a bone to pick with
the uncontrolled “reforms” the government was making. All of these new
movements used antinationalist rhetoric, and some of them (Student’s plenum)
even negotiated the government into submission after a two week long occupation
of the universities. Thus, the cracks in the rock-solid power of VMRO-DPMNE and
DUI began to form.

Following the students, the main opposition
party, the SDSM started publishing audio recordings of wiretapped officials. It
was a huge scandal, revealing that the national intelligence agency had
wiretapped the entire government, opposition, media, all political figures,
foreign diplomats and embassies, as well as thousands of other people. It is
still unclear who ordered this to be done, and where the recordings would go,
but somehow they came into the hands of Zoran Zaev, leader of the SDSM.

He
published them one by one from his party headquarters until 5 May
2015, when a recording of the then-head of the ministry of interior
and her spokesperson talking disparagingly about a boy being killed at the
victory celebrations after the elections was released.

The recording sparked a public revolt that
had been lacking for years, where a few thousand people, unorganized and
unprepared, tried to storm the government building. After a few hours and a few
dozen injured, riot police dispersed the crowd. Four days later, the police
engaged in a firefight with a terrorist group in the second largest city,
Kumanovo, and eight police officers died. This sparked a period of mourning
and the protests were either transformed or called off.

In the following months, the four major
political parties at that time, the VMRO-DPMNE, SDSM, DUI and DPA signed the
Przhino agreement, implementing a special public prosecutor to investigate the
crimes implicated in the audio recordings. The SPP has brought up dozens of new
cases over the following months, and while no sentences have been brought yet,
the prosecution is working on several cases against high government officials
and businessmen.

According to the big picture presented in opposition media,
Macedonia has been ruled by a criminal elite instead of a political party and
it is hard to not see the evidence, especially after you’ve literally heard it on leaked recordings.
Meanwhile in 2016, a protest movement called the “Colourful revolution”,
spearheaded by the SDSM alongside dozens of NGO’s and initiatives raged on for
over two months, gathering tens of thousands of supporters.

The cause for this
was the general decree that the President of the Republic, Gjorgje Ivanov
proclaimed in April, giving amnesty to any and all politicians in Macedonia
from the cases initiated by the special prosecution. After a while, the
President withdrew his amnesty and the protests settled down.

The next big thing that happened were the
parliamentary elections in December 2016, where the ruling VMRO-DPMNE fell
to 51 MPs, and the SDSM rose to 49, while the main Albanian parties DUI and DPA
both lost MPs to the new Albanian parties Besa and the Albanian Alliance
coalition.

After a lot of pressure from all sides and the obvious fact that
VMRO-DPMNE could not assemble a majority to form a government, the SDSM
provided proof to the public and the President who had asked for it, that it
had formed a parliamentary majority of 67 out of the 120 seats.

SDSM had assembled this majority with the
signatures of the representatives from DUI, who turned on their coalition
partner, and the new Albanian parties. A small, but important detail here is
that a new far-right movement called Tvrdokorni (a name meaning something
between “hardcore” and “hardliners”) sprung up and marched through the capital,
condemning both SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE as traitors to the national Macedonian
interests.

Amazingly, the President refused to give a
mandate to the opposition leader Zoran Zaev saying that, through his coalition
with the ethnic Albanian parties, he was following the agenda of neighbouring
Albania and thus threatened the territorial integrity of Macedonia. Meanwhile,
an initiative supported by VMRO-DPMNE appeared, mimicking the methods of the
Colourful revolution in its entirety, protesting in over 20 cities and with
thousands of people.

The only difference between the Colourful
revolution and the so-called “Black revolution” is that the latter stands for
Macedonian national pride, against foreign influences and Albanian domination,
while the Colourful revolution stood for multi-nationalism and rule of law.
Both protest movements encapsulate some degree of violence – the Colourful
revolution practiced soft violence, throwing water balloons filled with all
kinds of colors on government symbols and buildings, while the new movement has
started by attacking prominent opposition politicians, supporters and media. This
is where we are today.

However, over the last period, things started
to get a bit blurry. The main subject in the media is no longer the crime that had
sparked this whole crisis, or the wiretapping scandal. Now, the media is
concentrated on nationalism and the erosion of the state.

This is because of
the latest developments in the political situation, where all of the ethnic Albanian
parties went to Tirana and created an Albanian political platform that seeks to
implement bilingualism in Macedonia, making Albanian the second official state
language.

The VMRO-DPMNE responded harshly to this
platform, but DUI officials repeatedly stated that in negotiations for the new
government between the current coalition in power, the ruling Macedonian party
accepted all of the terms except for the continued existence of the special public
prosecution.

Thus, nationalism from both sides soars
after years of silence. One as a veiled irredentist political statement and the
other as a self-proclaimed defender of the unitary character of the state,
while at the same time being against the opposition and a supporter of the
current parties in power.

Although the situation is incredibly
convoluted, there are still positive sides. One of these is in regards to the
failure in the rise of the far-right. VMRO-DPMNE, with its infinite wisdom, has
sidestepped their only chance at reforming their party into one that would
become more powerful, by subduing the Tvrdokorni movement and replacing it with
a Colourful Revolution-type one.

The Tvrdokorni gathered a decent number of
supporters in a relatively short period of time, partisan and non-partisan
nationalists alike. Through this far-right movement that shares its ideology
with the ruling Macedonian party, DPMNE could have reformed into a much
stronger and more concentrated force based on ideology instead of the loose
technocracy and organized crime base which it has become. On the other hand,
the SDSM’s peaceful and reformist ways of non-violence have brought it within
grasp of coming to power after 11 years in opposition.

After all that, we have to pose the
question “What effect will this have on the situation in the country and the
region?”

First, we have to take into consideration
the cultural standpoints. Macedonia has two major ethnic groups – the
Macedonians and the Albanians, but only the Albanian political parties are
connected with their peers in Albania and Kosovo. This necessarily implies
support from those states and therefore interference in domestic affairs,
however it also necessitates caution as all of these parties are very close.

President Ivanov in his address to the
nation, declared that Albania had meddled in the country’s domestic affairs. He
received a response from Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama which denied this,
however the diplomatic incident stands. Macedonia has been plagued by
diplomatic incidents as the VMRO-DPMNE leader, Nikola Gruevski called for the
removal of foreign-funded organizations and nosy ambassadors, referring mainly
to US Ambassador Jess Baily who has had frequent talks with all party leaders.

Furthermore, Ivanov mentioned in a
subsequent statement that the army of the Republic of Macedonia is ready to
defend its borders should need arise, prompting responses from neighboring
nations. Newspaper articles fly about, stating that Kosovar forces are on the
border, that terrorists are forming in Macedonia and so on, aggravating the
situation even further.

Statements were made by NATO and EU high
representatives to calm the situation down and ask Ivanov to give the mandate
to Zaev per democratic principle, but the situation still remains unclear. Thus,
even though Macedonia is at the centre of the clash of power and cultural
differences between its indigenous people, as well as the struggle between
globalist, pro-western cultural influences and the local traditions, I would
say that the attempts of the ruling party to turn Macedonia’s situation from a
“state under occupation by a criminal group” into one of ethnic conflict, have
been relatively unsuccessful.

What is clear though is the support that
the Russian government is giving to the current party in power, saying that
VMRO-DPMNE is fighting irredentism and foreign influences, instead of the
obvious struggle to stay out of prison for the billions of dollars extracted
from the state treasury through various means over the last 11 years. Zaev has
repeatedly said that all criminals from all parties, including SDSM but
primarily VMRO-DPMNE must answer for any crimes they have committed, and that
everything can be debated if it is within the constitution.

With the Russian influence and the American
domineering position coupled with the EU’s (uncertain at times) support for the
rule of law and democracy, the country is well on its way to change. We can
expect a new government soon, as President Ivanov has no power to keep the
country in chaos by withholding the democratic mandate from the parliamentary
majority.

Sooner or later, he will have to reverse his decision because the
country is already falling apart – the government is currently not doing
anything, instead choosing to hibernate until disbanded, the parliament has not
assembled for two and a half months and the judiciary is experiencing major
shake-ups and resignations as SPP cases start to flow in.

Even more troubling is the postponing of
local elections that were supposed to take place in May, but were not called
for by any party within the legal time limits. No local government means no
paychecks for those employed by it, and these are the thousands of people that
will starve should this come to pass.

So very soon, if nothing changes,
Macedonia could have no executive body, no legislative body, weak judiciary
bodies and illegitimate and powerless local authorities. It is very unclear
what would come from the midst of the chaos, but with the current flow of
events, it can’t possibly be good.

Will it be a nationalist resurgence in far
right parties, or a major left uprising through the newly formed leftist party?
Will it be an inter-ethnic or an intra-ethnic conflict being perpetuated by the
media? Will the rumors of a nationalist Macedonian paramilitary group come
true, or will Macedonia just slip back into the mantra of “Euroatlantic
integration, peace and cohabitation”?

Surrounded by the NATO on three sides it is
clear that the organization wants this territory in its control, however the
question is how are they going to drive the social factors to implement this
wish?

In the end, hope dies last, but right now it is dying quickly, with only
one of the possible outcomes being positive – that the new government forms as
quickly as possible, shuts down the country’s organized crime which has
occupied it, and no blood flows in the process, because we all know, once the
Balkans get going, Europe trembles.

About the author

David Stefanoski is a student at the Institute for Security, Defense and Peace at the University of Skopje. He was a co-ordinator of the original student protests in Macedonia and active in protests and plenums in the country.

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